I know it has been long time not to write anything and this is due to the fact that i’m still suffering with my time management.
Actually this is my First day to stay awake till late time since I got my 3rd Daughter with my 2 hands free to write for you so I thought to get profit and write about this topic which is very important to talk about today.
During the implementation of a new ERP, I can see that most of trainings are covering small part of the available features if not to say that the trainer is showing only features that came to the mind of the customer. For example, I saw many people having Microsoft Dynamics NAV implemented but never heard about account schedule or at least never using it.
I do believe that the training part of the implementation must be more taken into consideration and I do recommend for any company who is going to implement a new ERP to ask about the CV of the trainer and the training agenda and the way training is giving during the sales stage and the customer has totally right to put any condition before signing any contract with the supplier.
Without a good training all users will hate the new ERP solution in 2 weeks especially with no good training manual Guide.
Hope this subject was important for you and you are welcome to right any comment.

I have been working for almost 11 years with ERP Solutions especially Microsoft Dynamics NAV and AX and I saw that many times these implementations failed for many reasons.

I have dedicated time today to talk about the main 3 reasons and hopefully soon I will be listing more reasons for the failure of the ERP implementation.

– One of the most important reason is the non-readiness of the company: In Lebanon and most of Arabic countries , Companies are most of the time not mature or ready enough to implement new ERP solution due to the fact that:

most of processes are not defined yet

current employees are not yet qualified to work on well structured ERP solution

most companies are not following the right processes for their industry

most companies are afraid to change their old ERP solutions

most companies are not having the right Hardware infrastructure to implement new ERP

Most companies are not having the needed time to implement new ERP since Key users are always busy with daily operation and cannot find and dedicate the needed time to implement new ERP

– Second reason is the experience of Implementer : we have currently big demand on ERP consultants while the available experienced consultants in all Middle east are not enough for these demands. For that reason, we found out that we have junior consultant working on most of the ERP implementation which means that the implementation will take longer time and the implementation will not follow the best practices so at the end we have a big failor.

– Third and important reason is the budget : most of companies looking to implement ERP solution dedicate a fixed budget for the implementation that is most of the time not enough to implement a complete solution that fits with the company’s requirements. Indirectly this will push the supplier implementing the ERP solution to reduce expenses which always means reduce the quality and the deliverable of the implementation. At the end the ERP implementation will be partial and the customer stop using the new ERP and step back to the old ERP.

so Before you start your ERP implementation, I suggest that you make sure of the following :

Prepare all the pre-requisites for any ERP implementation

Have the needed time and make sure Key users are available for the new implementation

Select the right and experienced ERP supplier and make sure to check CVs of ERP Consultants before select the right one

Dedicate the needed budget for the implementation of a complete ERP solution

It has been long time I didn’t write anything because I was investing time to learn new things and enhance my soft Skills.
The question “Why it’s always hard to convince companies to invest money to implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM?” comes to my mind this morning since I recognized while checking my pipeline that we have lot of ERP Opportunities (Microsoft Dynamics AX/NAV) , ECM (Enterprise Content Management – Microsoft Sharepoint 2013) Opportunities but small list of Dynamics CRM Opportunities.
I have been working for almost 8 years with Dynamics CRM and I had around 5 years sales activities with Dynamics CRM. While trying to summarize the situation, I can clearly state the following :
– We always have can have long list of CRM leads
– Qualifying CRM leads into opportunities are very hard but still possible with much efforts and attractive demonstrations and presentations
– Once we reached the opportunity phase, Customer is always surprised with the investment to pay in order to have the Dynamics CRM implemented in his premises.
– Companies are always afraid to invest money in implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM or any non-free CRM solution since still companies can see that this product is getting a must nowadays even that this is the only product that can directly generate money to any company if well implemented and followed by employees inside any company.

I think all the above is due for the fact that most companies still don’t know the impact of implementation CRM solution in their organizations and still afraid to pay money while not getting any return over investment.

In my opinion, main suppliers and big partners must do much of awareness sessions to explain and show the benefits of CRM solution before going strongly into the market.